“The intelligence gathered is that a migrant boat departed from Abene, Cassamance in Senegal next to Kartong on the other side of the country and not from Kartong as claimed on social media,” he clarified.
“Our officers are on routine 24/7 patrol since 9 November 2023, considering the risk attached to this journey and the already loss of lives at sea,” he stressed. “We all know that the current weather is bad; smugglers still making profit while our youths perish. The information is almost 11 days since the boat departed which is beyond the usual days that boats arrive when they leave The Gambia.”
“The good side of it is that we are working with Senegalese authorities and sharing intelligence. So if they think they can shift to that side, soon we will get them because for us what's important is to make sure we don’t lose our youths in this journey. So, we will protect our youths from dying by strengthening our collaboration with Senegal.”
“We also monitor cross border movements of smugglers transporting migrants from one country to another where they believe could be a soft spot to launch their operations or carry out their activities,” Mr. Bah said.
“Now they know we have tightened the knot on coastal belt so they would transport people in areas outside our jurisdiction.”
“We also received information that some boats will arrive in Europe claiming to depart from The Gambia just because they have Gambian migrants inside the boat whereas their departure point is not within Gambian territory. These are mainly departures launched close to our borders from the southern part of Senegal or North Bank area.”
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